The present application relates to the management and use of electronic links and more specifically to techniques for managing and using links to access components and resources in a distributed environment.
The popularity of distributed networks such as the Internet and the World Wide Web has given rise to a large number of servers offering services and resources of various sorts. Given the vast amount of information that is available over such distributed networks, it is becoming difficult for users to easily locate and access information and services that are relevant to a user. For example, users often want to access information that is customized and relevant to the user. To this end, web servers have been developed that enable a user to customize the content that is displayed to the user. Such servers are sometimes referred to as portals.
A portal provides a central gateway through which users can access various information sources and services/applications. A portal may provide access to several portal components including one or more portal pages, portal snippets, etc. A portal page may comprise one or more portal snippets that enable data to be retrieved and displayed on the portal page. Portal snippets are generally programs that retrieve data from an information resource and display it on a portal page. Examples of portal snippets include portlets, SAP's iViews, Plumtree's gadgets, Microsoft's web parts, etc. Portals generally allow a user to select and customize portal snippets that are included in the user's portal page or pages. In this manner, the user can customize the content that is retrieved and displayed on the user's portal page. Portal snippets may be developed using Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) such as Visual Studio .NET from Microsoft Corporation. In general, an integrated development environment (IDE) is a set of integrated tools for developing software.
Generally, when a user wishes to access a resource of component provided by a web server, the user has to connect to the appropriate web server, provide information such as user name and password that is used to authenticate the user, and upon successful authentication, browse to the component of interest to the user. For example, in order to access components (e.g., portal pages) stored by a portal, a user generally has to first connect to the portal. The user then has to provide information (e.g., user name, password) that is used to authenticate the user before the user can access portal components. Upon successful authentication, the user can then browse to the component that the user wishes to access. Accordingly, several time consuming activities (e.g., connecting to the portal, providing user name and password, browsing to the component of interest, etc.) have to be performed before a user can access a portal component of interest to the user. The problem is compounded when the user wishes to access components stored by multiple portals, each with their own connection and authentication requirements. Accordingly, techniques are desired that simplify user access to portal components and web server components in general.